Whitley County High School FFA students win multiple awards at Kentucky state competition

The Whitley County High School (WCHS) Future Farmers of America (FFA) program, recently took home several awards during state competition finishing in first place, second place and third place in various competitions.

The WCHS FFA Agriculture Mechanics Team won first place for the second year in a row.

Team member Jake Prewitt was the top scoring individual in the state, Gracie Brashear placed second, and Leslie Monhollen placed third.

The contest is typically held at the Kentucky State Fair, but due to COVID-19 restrictions was held virtually Monday afternoon.

Team members completed a multiple choice test, a sprayer practicum, and a pesticide practicum for this year’s competition.

“Unfortunately, the team will not get to travel to Indianapolis for the national contest due to cancelation due to COVID restrictions,” school officials said in a release.

“We are very proud of this team for overcoming the COVID obstacles to still put in time to practice their skills via Zoom and independent work as well. This is the fourth time in school history that WCHS FFA has won the state in this competition.”

The WCHS FFA Forestry Team placed second in state competition last week. Team members included: Kayla Shelley, Madison Swift, Amy Young, and Bryanna Walker, who ranked fifth individually in the state.

The state forestry contest was held virtually this year. Team members had to identify trees, identify insects, diseases, forestry tools and take a multiple choice test.

The WCHS FFA Meats Evaluation Team placed third in virtual competition earlier this week.

Team member Brian Kirby was the high individual in the state competition, and Chelsey Logan placed fourth overall. Steven Watson and Jesse Watson rounded out the team.

“Congratulations to those students for their hard work studying in class last school year, independently during these last months, and time spent on Zoom practices have really paid off in their success,” school officials said in a release.

“Big shoutout to Anne Bays owner of Moonlight Meat Processing for her continued help on training/supporting these teams. She had the idea of enhancing the teaching of this material and training these teams over three years ago when she approached the WCHS agriculture teachers with this plan. She saw a need to teach this material in classes.”

Officials added that local meat processing has proven to be an extremely vital part of agriculture especially during this pandemic due to national meat shortages with several former FFA students working in the field.

“FFA team competitions are titled CDE’S (Career Development Events) and with this partnership that theme is proving true with former team members now being employed in the meat processing industry,” officials noted in the release.

FFA member Gracie Brashear also received a bronze rating at the national level for her nursery operations proficiency.

“Gracie filled out an application of nearly 20 pages detailing her work in the nursery industry as her Supervised Agriculture Experience (SAE) project. This application included summary of her work, skills with explanations, financial records, and pictures with captions,” the release noted.

Her project involved her working for horticulture industries, such as a local nursery greenhouse and volunteering at the school greenhouse. At those locations she gained skills, such as watering, plant care, transplanting, and customer service just to name a few.

“Gracie’s road to success started off by winning the region, then the state, and now receiving a bronze rating at the national level. Gracie became the first to compete in a national proficiency contest since 2016. Congratulations on this awesome achievement,” the release stated.